Dr Hannah Fry is a lecturer in the mathematics of cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). She was trained as a mathematician with a first degree in mathematics and theoretical physics, followed by a PhD in fluid dynamics. After a brief period working in aerodynamics, she returned to UCL to take up a post-doctoral position researching a relatively new area of science - social and economic complex systems. This led to her appointment as a lecturer in the field in October 2012.

She has a broad portfolio of public engagement activities including schools outreach, podcasting, academic stand-up, cafe scientifique and public lectures. Her TEDx talk at the inaugural TEDxUCL was featured on the front page of TED.com and currently has around half a million views across all TED channels.

Research Summary

Dr Hannah Fry's research revolves around the study of complex social and economic systems at various scales, from the individual to the urban, regional and the global, and particularly those with a spatial element.

The systems cover a broad range of real-world mechanisms, from crime and security to trade, archeology and transport. They are analysed using dimensional and asymptotic techniques, spectral methods and numerical approaches alongside tools originating from chaos theory, game theory and fluid dynamics. Of particular interest are the translations translations between various complex systems descriptions - ABMs, statistical physics descriptions and PDEs.